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ChapterTwo
Daniel Perry jerked awake on the prison doctor’s exam table and slid sideways in the slickness pooled beneath him.
They’d bled him again.
He flinched, and leather straps bit into his arms and legs.His skin was sticky with blood, sweat, and tears, judging by the burn and grit in his eyes.
“Riiise and sucky shine.”Hell must be missing a manic radio host.The guard—the one who Perry called Eeny, or was that Miny?Or maybe Mo—clapped his hands, the booming sound bouncing off the room’s cement blocks.The prison blurred in shades of gray.“Wakey wake, witch.Doctor’s orders.”
No light came from the attached observation room.The doctors had come and gone, pumping him with drugs that doubled any legal max dose.
“Move, freak.”Another guard loosed the order in a near growl and followed it with a sharp baton jab to the ribs.Meany.That had to be Meany.
“Still strapped down.”Perry let the impliedassholebleed through his tone.A dumb move.The guard cracked the baton against his mangled thigh.Pain shot through his bad leg, jangling nerve endings already fried by whatever experiments they’d done this time.
“Let him up.We’re late moving him.”Eeny made it sound as though it’d been Perry’s fault for being unconscious.“The psych will be checking on him.”
Moments later, Perry shuffled between the two guards, keeping as vertical as he could manage.The high pitch of steel dragging on cementcling-clang-clingedwith each limp.“What’d the mad scientists play at curing today?”
“Not sure why the docs bother with you.”Meany shoved him, sending Perry to his knees.His skin split on the concrete.“Not after what you did, playing lawyer for those child rapists, after almost killing those women.They should leave you to rot.”
Eeny jerked him to his feet.“Leave the crazy alone.He can’t help his delusions.”A cruel snicker undercut any kindness.“The hotshot attorney thinks he’s a witch with magical powers.Riiight.”
“I’m not crazy.”Or Perry hadn’t been.Before he’d joined the demon-led Revelare.Before they’d shoved stolen magic in his veins.Before he’d committed atrocities under their compulsion wards.Before he’d been tossed into the witch Senate’s prison.
“How could you defend those slimeballs?”Meany pushed the words out through a snarl.
“Because they had a constitutional right.”Perry swallowed blood.They must’ve forgotten the mouth guard during the testing.“Like I didn’t since I had no trial.”
“Everyone knows you tried to kill that DA and her sisters.”Eeny’s hold on his arm tightened, digging into slices and scars.
“Had no choice.I was under a demon’s compulsion wards.”The truth.But not one human guards would accept.Not when they had no idea magic was real.
“Demons.Witches.More of your fantasies.Those women did nothing to you.”Meany jerked on the chains.“They were unarmed innocents.”
“Those sisters are elementals.They are living weapons.”Not that he would’ve gone against them if it hadn’t been for the compulsion wards, the Revelare’s enlist-or-die policy, and the threats to his father’s life and his own if he failed.“The most powerful witches of our generation.”
“See?Delusional.”Eeny spun a stubby finger next to his temple in the universallocosign.“Next, you’ll tell us again about your date with the supermodel.”
“Vori.”If Perry had only waited at the bar where she’d told him to stay put.He should’ve stayed there with her, should’ve begged to see her again, should’ve tried for a future instead of chasing ghosts.
Would’ve.Should’ve.Could’ve.
“Vori Maronov is überfamous.She dates celebrities, not scum like you.”Eeny punched in a code that opened the lone cell door in the hallway.
“No.”Perry struggled against both guards, moving fast despite the chains wrapped around his ankles, waist, and wrists.“Not solitary.Not again.”Wrong magic sizzled beneath his skin.The comforting hit had his heart speeding up with the pulsing powers.Electricity buzzed below the steel chains, stinging the skin there in a pain edged with pleasure.
They thwacked metal against his skull, and Perry crumpled, his vision exploding in stars of white and black.Fresh blood trickled down his forehead, mixing with the dried, sticky gross.“All right.”He raised his chained hands.
But Meany didn’t stop.The brutal bully went for the throat.
Perry gagged on the burning pain.He couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do more than flinch when the guard lifted the baton for another blow.
“That’s enough.Stand down, partner.And you.”Eeny moved between them.“Get your crazy ass inside the cell.”
Inch by painful pinch, Perry dragged himself into the six-by-six cell.
Eeny pointed to the chains.“I’ll take those off, but if you so much as twitch or do whatever weird trick it is you have with electricity, I’ll let him at you.”He crouched an arm’s length away.“Solitary might not compare to the fancy Beverly Hills pad you had, but it’s better than you deserve.Better than dead.We clear?”
